Zepto Znote 6625WD - Zepto Znote 6625WD

Summary

Our Score

8/10

Review Price free/subscription

Of all its features though, it's the screen that's probably the most noteworthy thanks to a 1,680 x 1,050 native resolution display that's sharp and great to look at. A high contrast finish helps produce decent black levels and clean and vibrant colours, while the 300cd/m2 brightness is also very impressive. Naturally, the extra vertical and horizontal pixels also provide a decent level of desktop real-estate, leaving plenty of space for running multiple applications and the sidebar applications. A response time of 6ms grey-to-grey should also ensure moderate gaming and video performance, though as with all LCDs some ghosting and smearing is unavoidable.

Unfortunately what you gain in performance and some good features, you lose in design and aesthetic appeal because the 6625WD is a noticeably dated looking machine. Lid closed things aren't so bad; in fact the smooth and curved lid is actually quite attractive. However, opening up the notebook reveals a rather less attractive situation. Dull black plastic, dull silver highlights and slightly jarring silver come light-grey keys combine to no great effect, producing a notebook that isn't quite ugly, just entirely mediocre.

It is this that clearly divides Zepto from the larger manufacturers. It can match them on price and features and surpass them in terms of customisation, but for design appeal you're looking in the wrong place. Multimedia is clearly not a strong point either, with fairly average speakers and the lack HDMI proving quite limiting. Fortunately, there are some plus points.

As a chassis, it's not quite as bulky and heavy as some. With a six-cell 5600mAH battery it weighs just a shade over 2.9kg, while it's relatively slim with dimensions of 355 x 262 x 27mm (WxDxH). There are also plenty of useful shortcut buttons, with media keys on the front edge and an assortment of other shortcuts above the keyboard. There's also a volume rocker on the right edge, accompanied by headphone and microphone jacks.

Another nice feature is the touch pad, which is integrated into the surface of the notebook in a similar manner to that on the HP Pavilion HDX. It's also very pleasant to use, while the buttons feel responsive, though the touch pad itself is probably a centimetre or so too wide, with it occasionally obstructing typing.

Speaking of typing, the keyboard is a bit of Jekyll & Hyde affair. On the one hand it's very well arranged, with a proper sized Return key, nicely offset cursor keys and Page Up/Down keys that are set vertically along the right hand side of the keyboard. Zepto has even managed to put the Ctrl key in the correct position to the left of the Fn key: hooray!

However, this generally excellent layout is let down significantly by the keys themselves. As with the design they aren't downright awful, just not as good as they could or should be. They don't spring back as quickly or cleanly as we'd like and generally feel slightly shallow and unresponsive.